1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a portable device having multiple functions. More specifically, the present invention relates to a portable device that has a function of playing contents stored in a recordable media.
2) Description of the Related Art
Recently, due to the progress in the semi-conductor technology, memory cards have become smaller, and come to have a greater capacity. Memory cards store various contents such as music data and visual data. There have been considered portable devices such as a portable phone, a PDA, and a hand-held PC, which have a function of playing contents stored in such memory cards. The power source of such portable devices is generally a battery. Since the capacity of a battery is limited by its nature, there is a limit to the amount of time a portable device can operate in a continuous manner. Conventionally, the manner of supplying power to a portable device has been such that power is supplied to the function the consumer wishes to utilize as much as the function requires, as long as there is power left in the battery, regardless of the type of function.
However, in the aforesaid conventional power supply method, a situation can conceivably arise where the remainder of a battery is all gone after the consumer utilizes the contents play function. In such cases, the portable device is unusable not only with respect to its contents playing function, but also with respect to its basic functions as a portable device. Generally speaking, the contents playing functions require much power. Therefore, it is very likely that such a problem frequently occurs in the aforementioned conventional power supply method.
The present invention is to overcome the aforementioned problem. According to the present invention, power supply to the contents playing function is stopped once the remainder in a battery becomes lower than a predetermined value. In this manner, the present invention provides a portable device which has contents playing function and prevents in advance occurrence of a situation in which basic functions of the portable device become unavailable.
To attain this object, the multiple function portable device of the present invention includes a battery for supplying power, power remainder monitoring means for monitoring the remainder of the battery, power supply means for obtaining power from the battery and supplying the power to each function independently, and power supply control means for controlling the power supply means to control the power supply to each function.